Steak and Ale Pie

Steak and ale pie is the definitive British pub pie, a dish that crystallised as cooking beef and brewing ale became twin foundations of the English diet from the medieval period onward. Ale was the everyday English drink before tea and coffee, weak and unhopped, and it was routinely used as a braising liquid for tough cuts of beef, the malt and bitterness tenderising the meat and giving the gravy a dark, malty depth. The pie form emerged as a way to present the stew: the slow-braised beef and its gravy are put into a dish and sealed under a pastry lid, traditionally shortcrust or suet, now usually puff pastry, and baked until the crust is golden and the filling bubbling. The 18th-century rise of porter and stout brewing in London gave the dish its modern dark colour and bitter edge. The dish is distinct from the steak and kidney pie and from the Cornish pasty, and is the centrepiece of the traditional pub lunch across England.

Tender, gelatinous cubes of beef in a dark, glossy, malty gravy, the bitterness of ale cut by onion sweetness, under a flaky buttery pastry lid that shatters and soaks up the sauce. Unctuous, deep, wintery.

The filling is a braise built for depth. Diced braising steak, a tough cut rich in collagen, is browned hard in batches for Maillard flavour, then onions are sweated, mushrooms added, and flour stirred in to thicken. The deglazing liquid is dark ale or stout, the malt sugars and hop bitterness of which colour the gravy deep brown and give it a malty-bitter backbone; beef stock tops it up. The mix is braised covered at a low temperature for 2 to 3 hours until the collagen melts into gelatin, turning the meat fork-tender and the gravy glossy and thick without added starch. The cooled filling goes into a pie dish, is sealed under a sheet of puff pastry, glazed with egg, and baked at a high temperature, around 200 degrees C, so the pastry puffs and crisps while the filling reheats and bubbles. The contrast of crisp lid and unctuous filling is the dish.